TELEVISION REVIEW;Examining the Issue of Priests and Sexuality

Nicolas Kent, the producer of "Naked Hollywood" and "Naked News," resisted what must have been a powerful temptation to call his latest documentary "Naked Priests" and settled for the next best thing. "Priestly Sins: Sex and the Church" looks into the matter of celibacy, or lack of it, among the Roman Catholic clergy. Unfortunately, Mr. Kent did not resist using trite television effects (eerie slow motion, peculiar colors, fuzzy pictures and spooky music), which give a tabloid tinge to an otherwise sobering report.

Half of this British-made documentary consists of stories, by now unastonishing, of priests luring children and young adults into secret sexual encounters. A former altar boy tells of seven years of what he later learned to call abuse. A woman recounts tearfully her treatment at the hands of a priest who "liked little girls." She calls him "very, very evil." Another woman confesses to being seduced by the family priest who would soon perform her marriage ceremony. She says, "I no longer could trust the Catholic Church."

A spokesman for the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, reflecting the doctrine reaffirmed by Pope John Paul II that priests remain male, single and sexually celibate, assures his interviewer that only a very small number of priests do not practice celibacy, which he says "has worked so well for so long."

Critics demur. A priest says that he was on the fast track to bishopdom but that his career stalled in 1985, when he collaborated in an investigation of sex among priests, and two former priests charge that the hierarchy is covering up a crisis. One of them estimates, without explaining how he arrived at the figures, that half the world's priests are not celibate; about a quarter of the noncelibates, he says, have relations with women or girls, and about 15 percent prefer men or boys. Someone else asserts that the clerical calling attracts pedophiles.

The most pointed issues raised but not much developed tonight are whether the Roman Catholic Church's celibacy rule, adopted in the 12th century, can withstand 20th-century changes in attitudes toward sex, and whether the periodic revelations of nonobservance, to put it less bluntly than the program does, are damaging priestly authority. Further attention, without the slow motion, is invited.

AMERICA UNDERCOVER Priestly Sins: Sex and the Church HBO, tonight at 10

For HBO: Sheila Nevins, executive producer. For the BBC: John Drury and Richard Denton, executive producers. Nick Read, director; Nicolas Kent, producer. An Oxford Television Company Production for Home Box Office and BBC Television. Marlene Sanders, narrator.